Birthday
by ChickWithThePurpleGuitar
Summary: Nico's not a fan of parties. Or large crowds of people. Or people in general, really. But when his fellow demigods decide to throw human birthday party, he can't say he's not grateful. Written for Nico's birthday.


**A/N: Hey, so… Apparently, according to the Internet, today (January 28) is Nico di Angelo's birthday! Who knew! So, I remembered that I had this Nico's Birthday fic and figured today would be the perfect time to post it. I warn you, it's not my best work, but that's cause I wrote it like three years ago at writing camp. The prompt was "Imagine the worst possible thing you could receive as a gift from someone. Write about opening the package and discovering what's inside." So, here it is. I hope you like it, and please review!**

**Btw, this theoretically takes place after Blood of Olympus, but again- I wrote this three years ago, so it doesn't **_**really. **_**More like after Last Olympian, but Nico's turning fifteen, so… I don't even know. It's in a time bubble, let's say that, shall we?**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

When Nico di Angelo shadow-travelled into Camp Half-Blood, hoping for some dinner, he did not expect to see half the camp wearing party hats.

"Happy birthday, Nico!" the campers shouted as soon as Nico appeared from the shadows.

The son of Hades stared at the spectacle in front of him. Percy, Annabeth, and a bunch of campers whose names Nico didn't care enough to learn were grinning at him. Behind them, the Hades Cabin was decorated with colorful streamers and balloons and other rainbowy things that made Nico sick. A huge pile of boxes and gift bags towered in front of the door, all different colors. He hated it.

"What is this?" Nico asked, mainly directing the question toward his cousin. Nico wondered if he'd done something bad to Percy without realizing it, and this was his punishment.

"We're having a party for you," the son of Poseidon replied. "To celebrate your fifteenth birthday!"

Nico crossed his arms and glared at his cousin. "Why?"

"We thought you'd like it, Nico," Annabeth said. "We figured you hadn't had a birthday party in a while, so we decided to give you one now."

Nico frowned. "But today's not my birthday."

Percy shrugged. "Yeah, well, we didn't know when it was, and we didn't want to ruin the surprise by asking, so we just kinda picked today. Besides, plenty of people don't have their parties on their actual birthdays."

Nico sighed. He figured he had two options: shadow-travel away and escape this stupid party (in which he'd have to go get money to buy some food, and risk starving to death), or stay and pretend to enjoy the party (in which he'd most likely be given food for free).

His stomach growled, deciding for him.

"Is there food at this party?" he asked.

"Yep," Percy replied. "The nymphs should be bringing the pizza over any minute."

Nico sighed. "Okay. Let's get this over with."

The campers cheered. Nico glared at them to shut up.

"Come on, Nico," Percy said, putting a hand on his cousin's shoulder. "Come open your presents."

"Yay," Nico muttered sarcastically.

Percy steered him over to the Hades Cabin, where the giant tower of presents sat.

"Open mine first, Nico!" a random camper called out. "It's the pink one!"

Nico looked down at the pile. About half of them were pink.

"I don't know who you are, so I'm not gonna do that!" he called in the general direction of the camper.

"Here, open this one," Percy said, handing Nico a blue-wrapped box.

"Gee, I wonder who this is from," Nico muttered. Percy chuckled.

Although he tried not to, Nico actually felt a bit curious about what Percy had given him. Percy Jackson was- by definition- Nico's best friend. would Percy know him well enough to really get him a good present?

Apparently not.

Nico ripped open the box, hoping to find that cool, black coffee cup he and Percy had seen at Starbucks, or maybe that delicious chocolate cake Mrs. Jackson sometimes made that Nico had mentioned he'd wanted some more of. But, no. Neither of those wonderful things were in the box. Instead, in the box was a fishbowl. An empty, glass fishbowl. No epic skeletons on the side, or dead fish for Nico to practice summoning with. Not even _live _fish that would probably die anyway after being in Nico's "capable" hands for more than a day. No, just an empty, boring fishbowl. And Nico, who had been taught good manners from both his parents _and _Bianca, had to pretend to like it.

"Wow," he said. "Man, Percy, this is…" he searched for the right word. "... unexpected."

"You really like it?" the son of Poseidon asked.

That was not at all what Nico had said, but he replied anyway, "Yeah, this is just great." Percy grinned, making Nico hope that the other presents would be better so he wouldn't have to lie again.

The other presents weren't better.

Annabeth got him a book in Ancient Greek about foreign architecture. He thanked her, but knew he'd never be so bored as to actually _read _the book.

The other assorted campers gave him everything from home-made sweaters to Princess Celestia dolls (not that he… knew what it was called or… anything). By the time he'd opened all of his presents, Nico wanted to scream. Plus, he was still hungry.

"Can we have food now?" Nico asked Percy.

"Not yet!" his cousin said, much to Nico's dismay. "It's time to play party games!"

Nico frowned. He'd only been to two parties in his lifetime that he remembered, and if he recalled correctly, the games they'd played weren't supposed to be known by ten-year-olds. He hoped that wasn't what Percy was talking about.

"What kind of games?" Nico asked, just to be safe.

"Well, to start," Percy replied, "Pin the tail on the hippocampus!"

Most of the campers cheered. Annabeth rolled her eyes, as if she were thinking how the Hades Percy had gotten into high school. Nico just continued being confused.

"How do you play that?" he questioned.

He shouldn't have asked.

First of all, he was blindfolded. Nico had his father's eyes, which meant that he could see in pretty much any lighting, or lack thereof, so being completely blinded was very scary to him.

Second of all, Percy spun him around and around at least 20 times, which made him feel very dizzy, a feeling he did not enjoy.

Third of all, Nico was forced to take a needle with a badly drawn tail on it and stick it on a badly drawn hippocampus body that he couldn't see! (He knew it was badly drawn because Percy had made it).

Holding the tail out in front of him, so as not to stab himself (the only thing Nico liked less than needles was penguins) **(A/N: Apparently I'd already started Oh, Nico when I wrote this…)**, he walked forward in a theoretically straight line towards his cabin door, where he assumed the hippocampus was hung. He stabbed the needle into what felt like a piece of paper; then pulled off his blindfold to see where it had ended up.

The tail was right where it should be, on the butt of the paper animal.

The campers applauded. "Good job, Nico," Percy commented. Nico couldn't help but smile at the perfect job he'd done.

"What's the next game?" he asked excitedly.

An hour and a half later, Nico had beaten a Fury-shaped piñata until it gave up its horde of candy, been the last one standing in Medusa-Eyes Freeze Dance, found a chair every time in Musical Thrones, and was faint from hunger but was having too much fun to care.

"Alright, everyone, it's time for pizza and cake!" Percy announced.

Nico rubbed his hands together excitedly. "Oh, yay, this is the best part," he muttered.

The campers gathered around on the ground in front of the cabins as wood nymphs skipped toward them with pizza plate.s Nico ended up having 46 slices, he was so hungry, and he still had room for cake.

Percy brought out the birthday cake and everyone quieted down. Nico stared at it, eyes wide. It was Mrs. Jackson's chocolate cake! He could already tell! The way Percy had explained it once was that holes were poked in the cake and when Mrs. Jackson poured the liquidy frosting over the cake, it seeped into the holes, making everything deliciously moist. On the top of the cake were the words "Happy Birthday, Nico" in bloodred icing and fifteen black candles were lit around the edge.

As Nico gaped at the most delicious looking cake he'd ever seen, the campers around him began to sing.

"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday, dear Nico! Happy birthday to you."

Nico smiled. "Make a wish," Percy told him, holding out the cake.

Nico closed his eyes and thought, _I wish every birthday could be this great._

Nico took a deep breath and blew out all fifteen candles.

Everybody cheered. As Percy and the wood nymphs passed out cake, Nico scolded himself for not wanting to be at this party. This was absolutely the best thing that had ever happened to him.

When Percy handed him his cake, Nico said, "Thank you, Percy. For all of this. This was the best birthday ever."

**A/N: So, yeah, there's that. I hope you all liked it. Happy Birthday to Nico, and please review!**


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